Heerlen

Heerlen has been reinventing itself since the legions left. As Coriovallum it stood at a Roman crossroads, and its baths — the best-preserved Roman remains in the Netherlands — are displayed in the Thermenmuseum, the caldarium's floor plan legible under glass: the town's first act, spa culture in Limburg. The second act was black: coal. In the twentieth century Heerlen was the capital of the Dutch mining district, the richest town in the country by some measures — until the state closed every mine within a decade, the hardest deindustrialisation the Netherlands attempted, and Heerlen fell further than any Dutch city had. The third act is the interesting one: the town turned its blank postwar walls into the country's foremost street-art museum in the open air, murals by international artists colonising the concrete, while the Glaspaleis — the crystalline 1935 department store ranked among the world's important modernist buildings — became Schunck, the city's arts centre.

The stage is documented in the concert record: the Parkstad Limburg Theaters, the twin-city theatre organisation whose Heerlen house is the region's major hall for touring opera, dance, orchestras and drama. Baths, coal, murals: Heerlen's acts don't resemble each other, which is precisely its distinction — Limburg's phoenix, currently in colour.